How to get Google and Yahoo to stop showing your directory listing in their results

At times both Google and Yahoo can show your directory listing as your listing in their search engine results, instead of your natural listing.

Google does this with the Google Directory (ODP) when they feel the directory listing is a better match to the users search. Yahoo tends to do this all the time with the listings from the Y! Directory.

While both can be ok, more often than not, they hurt your chances at ranking as good as you could without this “feature”. This is especially true if you originally got a poor listing at either directory, which is very common.

Luckily you can now turn this feature off at both engines with a simple meta tag:

Google: <.meta content=”NOODP” name=”ROBOTS”>
Yahoo: <.meta content=”NOYDIR” name=”ROBOTS”>

[note: you'll need to remove the "." after the first "<" above.]

Just place each within your header just like normal meta tags and the next time the engines update you’ll be good to go. If you are not clear on why you would want to do this check out RustyBrick’s example listing.